Friday, 27 March 2009

So my first mothers day without Rich was an emotional day as you can imagine. I was determined to keep busy and try not to focus on the fact that he was not there. My Mum had looked after Harry for me the night before as I had been out to a friends engagement party.

I picked up Harry and we made some food to have a picnic in the park and play on the swings before heading back to Mum's for dinner that evening.

Me and Harry arrived in the park and searched for some ducks to feed. Harry had fun throwing the bread to the ducks and swans. He then had the mission of finding us a bench to eat our lunch on. Once he had the right bench (a difficult choice for my picky son!) we sat down and ate our sandwiches and drank our juice before setting out for the important bit of finding the swings across the other side of the county park. Now Harry doesn't walk, Harry runs - as you can imagine Harry often trips, falls, runs into stuff etc etc! Today however Harry decides to trip and not break his fall with his hands but with his head!!! A massive black lump immediately formed on his head and he was screaming like a mad thing. I panicked and had no idea if a lump coming up was a good or bad thing and Harry was looking a little bit wobbly (I suppose you would after colliding head to pavement!) and therefore decided to take him to A&E to be safe. I was a fair walk away from the car and had to carry a crying Harry all the way back, I thought my arms were going to drop off. I remember being terrified at the time of anything happening to him - I guess thats the aftermath of Richie dying, you realise how precious life is and how easy it can be taken away.

Luckily A&E must be use to panicking Mum's as Harry was seen immediately and they thought that he was ok (aside from the bump) but asked us to stay for an hour so they could make sure he didn't get worst. Harry then played in the childrens A&E play area running around like a loon making me feel the biggest fraud as other parents came in with children with arms in slings or on crutches etc!

Wednesday, 18 March 2009

Myself and four friends have been getting ourselves fit by training for a 10K run at Dorney Lake in Taplow which took place Sunday 15th March. The aim of the run was for us all to raise as much money as possible for the charities we are donating to in honour of the fabulous Mr Wildman.

The day before the race the sensible thing to do would be to get lots of rest, stay away from the wine and have a healthy pasta dinner before getting to bed at a sensible hour! Whilst this was the plan, like all good plans can mine went to pot rather quickly. The previous week had been a particular shit one therefore when Katy turned up Saturday afternoon, instead of chilling out with a bottle of Evian we decided to hit the pub and sit in the sunshine with a bottle of Pinot! One bottle turned to two and then we where joined by Kat (another fellow runner!). From the sunny beer garden we moved onto the local Theatre to watch some friends in the local drama group perform the Regina Monologues - this seemed like a sensible plan as we needed to remove ourselves from the pub and get back to the plan of hydrating ready for our big run the next day.

The play was fantastic and was enjoyed by us all - therefore it was imperative that we remained in the bar after the show to congratulate the actors on their performace. This meant that we all obviously had to purchase further wine in order to toast the fine job they had done.................

At the end of the evening we walked the short walk back to my house from the theatre, tottering in my heels I stumbled and went over on my ankle D'oh!!! It immediatly really hurt and I had to walk home bare foot. Anyway, I climbed into bed ready to get rest before the big run!

I woke aprox 5am in a lot of pain everytime I moved my leg, I got out of bed to use the bathroom and nearly fell over as the pain was pretty bad. I got into bed and rest the foot on a pillow to try and make the swelling go down. After an hour I gave up trying to sleep and woke up one of my friends to drive me to casualty as I was concerned that I may have done some serious damage.

Got to A&E aprox 6:30 and luckily it was quiet so was seen immediatly and sent to X-Ray. The doctor reviewed the X-Ray and luckily no fractures or breaks (although he pointed out a floating piece of bone from an old injury - odd!!). He explained that I had sprained the muscle across the top of my ankle and needed to keep off it for at least 48 hrs and give it time to heel. Hmmm, this was not good seeing as I should be crossing the start line for the 10K at midday.

The doctor strapped up my ankle and it immediatly started to feel a bit better now it was supported. I got back home around 7:30 and decided to keep the foot up as long as possible and attempt the run. I know it was not the most sensible thing to do but I would kill myself for weeks if I didnt at least try - the run was for my Richie after all, and a few days before he died he attempted to squeeze his swollen feet into shoes in order to take me dancing for my birthday - therefore if he could attempt that for me then god damn it I could do this for him. My friends obviously attempted to talk me out of it but my mind was made up.

As we headed across to Dorney Lake I was beggining to worry that I would not be able to do this but worked on some mind over matter techniques that Richie had talked about when he was alive. When we arrived I started to feel better - there was a real buzz of excitement about the place and I picked up on this and was itching to start.

Myself, Katy, Pauly, Kat and Henry lined up with the rest of the runners and waited for the gun to fire to start of the 10K. At last the gun fired and we were off! The day was very hot and sunny and as we set off. The ankle was pretty sore for the first couple of miles but the more I ran the more it must have loosened up and I just kept my focus on Richie to ensure that I did not give up.

I finished with a respectful time of just under 60mins and came second out of the gang of us running! Never been so relieved as when I crossed the finish line though!

After the run we all got showered and met for a late Sunday lunch and re-hydrated with a couple of bottles of champagne (never one to be sensible!). Safe to say we were all tucked up in bed very early that evening.

Best news is that so far we have raised over £3,000 between the two charities we have set-up in Richies name.

Tuesday, 3 March 2009

Its been a while since I have posted so thought I should get my act together and get a new post in. Luckily last week gave me an opportunity to add a blog which relates to Richie as well.I have, since June last year, been attending a management and leadership training course with my company Cable&Wireless. The course takes place at the Military academy in Sandhurst. The venue is very inspirational so I have been very privileged to attend this course and enter this fantastic place. The course originally was split into 3 modules, each module focussing on different aspects of leadership and each module being two days with an overnight stay on-site in basic officer accommodation (this part I did not overly enjoy, not quite the Lowry darling!!). Anyway, the company decided to add on an additional module, module 4. This took place for me last week. Unfortunately I cannot go into too much detail around the content of this session in case anyone who is also attending an iteration of this course reads this blog. The Sandhurst motto is “what happens at Sandhurst stays at Sandhurst” and to give away too much information would ruin the experience for the next batch of delegates. Anyway, this final module was a physical and mental challenge, and at one point I was on the verge of giving up as the ‘activity’ I had to complete was, for me, petrifying! We were told in no uncertain terms that anything we were not comfortable doing was fine and we could just move onto the next ‘activity’. I therefore attempted this ‘activity’, legs turned to jelly, shook like a leaf and decided to move on to the next task. As I moved away I immediately thought “Good God Rich would kick your arse for giving up, get back there and do it!”. His motto was often, feel the fear but do it anyway. I therefore went back, focused on remaining calm and with some coaching from one of the tutors completed the challenge. At the end of it I felt brilliant, adrenaline buzzing and chuffed that his words are that strong they are still helping me through stuff today. What an amazing man.

I often get asked how me and the children are doing. Some days are great some days are indescribable. Rebecca appears to be doing ok, we talk about Richie often and focus on the fun stuff from the past. Harry is still very confused about the situation; he seems to be starting to understand that Daddy isn’t coming back now and understandably gets very upset about this. However, Daddy is working hard to keep the ‘monsters’ away from Harry’s room with his magic kung-fu moves. Harry loves to demonstrate this – am slightly worried that he will knock me out one day as he is still rapidly growing into a giant much like his Dad!